The musings of a rapidly aging fibre addict who must work to support her habit!

Monday, August 22, 2016

Canada Post Came Thru

Mail call!! I don't get much in the mail department so I don't check the box that often. But, I fell off the wagon & bought a couple of things in the dead of the night with my handy dandy credit card, Ooooops.

And so what did I buy??? A couple of books I've been wanting for ages. Sometimes, you don't need or want just another book about Techniques or Patterns. I also love the Stories & the History of the tools in my hands.

I bought 'The Old Hand Knitters of the Dales' by Marie Hartley & Joan Ingilby in paperback. I'd seen it on Sale for $500 in hardback & almost that much in paperback on eBay but it was always out of MY price range. I finally found a copy I could afford. This is not new stuff but an updated version of the original book published just after WWII. I haven't had a lot of time to read it yet since I opened the other one first, but what I have seen looks very interesting! It's a history of knitting in the Yorkshire Dales. A story of the local people & local wool that helped make England rich before the Industrial Revolution.

I also bought 'In the Footsteps of Sheep'
by Debbie Zawinski which I'd wanted since it was published last year. I
wanted it so badly that I opened the package as soon as I got home on Friday &
sat down with it to look inside. And then spent the rest of the evening reading it. And I continued to read it the next morning as I ate
my Cheerios & blueberries. In the end, I spent the whole weekend, to the detriment of everything else, reading the book.And I love the book. I love that it's
the story of people, of traveling & wool; of finding bits of fleece on the peat or in the bushes; of spinning that raw fleece into yarn on a stick & knitting it into
socks as she meandered from place to place. I love that it has little hand drawn maps showing the route in each chapter, the
method of travel & interesting spots along the way. It's not
really a knitting book although it has patterns for socks, but it isn't a spinning book either, although Debbie writes
about the characteristics of the wool she finds & the Scottish breeds it comes from. It's more of a Sock maker's travelogue or a Spinner's
rustic walk-about in several of the Wooly Meccas of the world. You don't have
to buy the book but you do have to read it, especially if you spin, love fleece & knit
socks.

My second package didn't even get opened until Saturday morning!! Inside I found a new Project bag & a cake of sock yarn. They were from the Yarn Harlot's Karmic Balancing draw for goodies for everyone who contributed to the annual PWA(People with Aids) Ride she & her TEAM make from Toronto to Montreal. Love the Bag & the yarn which matches the bag. Woohoo

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Ravellenics 2012

About Me

Rapidly aging woman with too many books, too much fibre & not enough time to take on all the great projects. I'm creaking like an old sailing ship on the Wet Coast these days but have too much junk to pack up & move.